


The Year of the Goat

by primeideal



Category: In the Year of the Boar and Jackie Robinson - Bette Bao Lord
Genre: 5 Things, Drabble Sequence, Multi, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-15
Updated: 2016-04-15
Packaged: 2018-06-02 08:36:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 490
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6559555
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/primeideal/pseuds/primeideal
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Five things that happened in 1955.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Year of the Goat

Fourth Cousin was engaged to be married, and was readying herself for a new beginning. A new style name, perhaps, and with any fortune, a happier partnership than Grand-grand-Uncle and Grand-grand-Auntie had endured. One duty remained; to pass off a legacy of her own.

"What are these?" asked Ninth Cousin, eyes wide as he paged through the delicate papers.

"Portraits. You don't remember them, they died before you were old enough, but Sixth Cousin gave these to me to keep safe, and now I'm giving them to you. Can you keep them within our family's books?"

"Always!"

* * *

 

"Maria?" Irvie asked. "Er, maybe you can help me. I have a question."

Maria Gonzales rolled her eyes, hoping for both their sakes they could get the conversation over with as quickly as possible. "Zero, six, or eight; they don't need to; they have no ears."

"It's not actually that kind of question, although I'm glad that you still know those answers."

Maria blushed. "I'm glad that you ask different questions."

"Would you--want to get dinner sometime?"

Irvie was asking her on a date? Maybe they really had grown up, after all. "I sure would."

* * *

 

Sean, Stephen, and Seamus O'Reilly were all in Mrs. Rappoport's fifth-grade class. Sean had grown up with the Dodgers and eagerly put up with every civics digression for the purposes of bringing them up in class discussion, while Stephen was captivated by the game off the field, and more likely to be inspired by an economically motivated suggestion of what Walter O'Malley should do next.

Seamus didn't really care either way, as long as he could tune out the radio every week and escape to the basement and Senora Rodriguez' piano lessons. (Toscanini, however, had passed on by then.)

* * *

 

Emily Levy wrote letters home and to her siblings, explaining the excitement of college. Chemistry labs ran long, political science was a thrill, but finding others to study with always helped. Together they proofread each others' essays, complained about the demanding orchestra director, and kibitzed chess games when visitors to campus gathered in the parks.

None of her endless revisions could quite capture the excitement of her first kiss after a long study date, shared glances over breakfast, the glow of her girlfriend's face chasing squirrels in the quadrangles, and these she tried to savor each day, quietly spellbound.

* * *

 

On Willow Street, where his sister had taught him to play catch before leaving for college, a seven-year-old (by United States standards, anyway) boy sat listening to the radio. The tenth cousin of the Wong family aspired, among loftier dreams, to be a pitcher in his stickball competitions, and this hope was made more glamorous with every broadcast he hung on. Once again, the same rhythms echoed through the streets of Brooklyn, given new words with every generation:

_Hey, hey, there's no doubt_   
_Johnny Podres shut them out_   
_Hey, hey, never fear_   
_Now at last, this is the year!_


End file.
